Before I got a chance to reject it the edit was already approved by three other reviewers. As there's no way that I'm aware of to contact the original editor or reviews to attempt to remedy this behavior, I simply made my own edit to the wiki to add a source for the content.

Now it occurred to me that if this editor was updating wiki's with plagiarized content, this might not be the only time it was done. Ideally I'd like to search for all wiki edits done by this user. (and in general terms by userxxxxx).

Given this situation I'd really like to see a new feature on SO that would allow us to search for all instances of a user's wiki edits. This could be as simple as going to the profile->edits page for a user and just adding a sort item for wiki's vs. questions, vs. answers

For those not aware, when one is reviewing edits, the reason listed on top for an edit to be rejected is because of plagiarized content:

@ShaWizDowArd - OK, thanks.. I was hoping they could be organized by "wiki" or something. Manually searching isn't too bad for this user, it's only 6 pages, but others have a lot more.
–
MikeJun 24 '13 at 19:18

There should be, had a similar situation in which a suggested wiki edit that was entirely plagerized ad copy was approved by three other reviewers, invalidating my rejection. In that case the user only had the one wiki edit suggestion, but if it was a pattern it would be nice to have some sort of filter to find it and help us clean it up.
–
jballJun 24 '13 at 23:57

@Danny - Robert said "I claim that short copies, like the one in the projekktor tag, satisfy all four of these criteria for fair use." and he was talking about a one sentence change. I agree with him on that point. This edit I point to is several paragraphs in length.
–
MikeJun 26 '13 at 13:27

1 Answer
1

As stated at What is the policy on tag wiki edits that appear to be copied from elsewhere?, it is ok to copy these, because the excerpts/summary are supposed to serve as a quick overview of the tag, and if someone has taken content from another author, that is fine. As long as it helps give a better understanding of a tag, there shouldn't be a problem. But I would say that it would be good to encourage others to site their source. Edit the wiki with a summary along the lines of

It is common courtesy to cite the author of an article if you are going to use it

Here's where I differ from you. That link you point to is talking about a stolen excerpt, a single sentence, fine no issues with taking that content. This example is about taking not only the excerpt but the entire tag description (several paragraphs of text), if I were to "borrow" that much text for say a college paper without citing the source, I would have been thrown out for plagiarizing.
–
MikeJun 26 '13 at 13:24

1

Point two: if it's only a courtesy to cite things, why is there even a reject reason of: "This edit plagiarizes content from an external source without proper attribution." available on the review edits page? This very strongly implies that it is not ok to take content without citing sources.
–
MikeJun 26 '13 at 13:26